Forza 450- I'm very impressed!

[French Paul]

[QUOTE=atxplus;1151348]where did you get the kit for 148[/QUOTE]
I got it from midlands on Halloween special for that but it's back up to £318 or something now and seems to be phasing out for the ex version to take it's place.
i still think it's worth that all day long when you compare it to the align kit with sloppy servos, though the align is nice!
keep an eye on eBay as I've seen one go for £120 and gutted I didn't get to it first for a doner!

[French Paul]

Update after 50 flight's

Servicing so far has included re shimming the head as it became ever so slightly sloppy and that's it!!
evereverything else still looks and feels like new!
I've now fitted the governor which has been the best thing I've done to date, it's a bloody monster at around 3100 and upwards where before it didn't sound like it was bogging much but must have been.
Other posts I've read said that the standard motors kv is too high and I agreed until I fitted the governor, it's got more than enough torque for me and my sloppy tick ticks. It just needed some better digital control.
I've upped the cyclic gain by 20% on my brain as it was dropping the tail in pitch pumps but that's sorted and it feels so much more locked in.
I'm running the align 360's again now I've got the gov on and they perform great plus Im getting 6 full minutes out of a 2200 40 gensace where the optipower lipos are struggling to make 5! They are actually rubbish lipos and I wish I'd not bought them, same in my g500, the £34 zippy wins over the £130 Opti.
I got a gaui x3 just over a week ago to compare to the forza and it's already up for sale! Though it's a nice kit and it flew nice, it just won't match the forza on quality or flight imo.
Looks like the forza is now my main heli and what it's given me the confidence to learn in just over 4 hours of flight money can't buy!

How's everyone else getting on with theirs??
Hopefully enjoying it as much as me :-)

[flynth]

[QUOTE=Paul_basildon_helis;1151343]Looking good flynth.
how are those tail blades?[/QUOTE]

Still in the wrong side of the maiden :D I hope, I can answer this weekend.

[Varelco]

Thought I'd bump this thread.

I took the opportunity to get my first proper outing with this heli today. I very pleased with how this little thing how flies, especially for the price I paid for the kit! Very complacent, smooth and quiet, I used the first couple of flights to tweak to Vortex to how I like it and find a decent head speed. I settled with 65% on the 14T pinion, no idea on the head speed but that gives me plenty of poke for 3D and still feels snappy, running the stock 15T on anything higher just seems nuts to me. I managed to get 4 minutes of 3D leaving 30% left in the Turnigy 2200mah packs, which seems respectable considering they are brand new and the temperature is hovering around freezing today, I except to push that out a bit longer during the warmer months.

I might have to invest in some more packs for it :)

[French Paul]

[QUOTE=Varelco;1156720]Thought I'd bump this thread.

I took the opportunity to get my first proper outing with this heli today. I very pleased with how this little thing how flies, especially for the price I paid for the kit! Very complacent, smooth and quiet, I used the first couple of flights to tweak to Vortex to how I like it and find a decent head speed. I settled with 65% on the 14T pinion, no idea on the head speed but that gives me plenty of poke for 3D and still feels snappy, running the stock 15T on anything higher just seems nuts to me. I managed to get 4 minutes of 3D leaving 30% left in the Turnigy 2200mah packs, which seems respectable considering they are brand new and the temperature is hovering around freezing today, I except to push that out a bit longer during the warmer months.

I might have to invest in some more packs for it :)[/QUOTE]

Hey Matt
Good to see someone else is out braving the cold :-)
Im getting 6.30 out of my 2200mah 60c gens ace packs @3200 and 5.30 @3500 throwing it around. That's in these temps down to 25-30%
I keep thinking I may get lower temps running the 14t but it actually runs really nice with the 15t now I've fitted a governor with my msh brain.
With a little but of tinkering it's a great heli, I'm up to 75ish flights now and it's still solid with all bearings like new(jap quality possibly).
350mm spin blades are next on my list as the align 360's are a little heavy on the 3s.

[Varelco]

Thanks Paul. According to Mr Mels headspeed calculator I should be running at 3200rpm. Which sounds about right, I'll take my
tacho with me next time. However we use the same capacity packs at the same headspeed but you are getting a whole 2 1/2 minutes longer flight
time than me, that's a lot. I take it that your running 360mm blades too? Because I'm running the stock 325mm which makes
it seem even worse! What kind of flying do you do? I may have to play with theol motor timing and PWM settings :/

[French Paul]

Those times were with the std blades, I knock 30 seconds off for the 360 blades.
i would say I'm flying sporty circuits with the odd tic toc thrown in so nothing too power hungry!
my times drastically improved once I added the governor and so did the way it flew.
it didn't sound like it was bogging on flat throttle curves but it really was quite a lot.
also I wonder how true the capacities of the packs are, I have read a few posts on this subject.
if your using 20c packs with the standard 3s motor they will be losing a good percentage from heat dissipation as they will be near max discharge just hovering in idle up.hence I went with the 60c lipos for a few £ more.
youll see some posts complaining about such a high kv motor for this reason as it's only good for 3min flights at over 3800rpm without a governor!
The governor fixed the time issue for me and I would have assumed the 14t would for you but maybe the std esc is not so efficient with it's timing.

[Varelco]

Ah ok thats fair enough! Thanks for the info. I'm not using the stock supplied ESC, I have a YEP 40 which I'm using the governor on, (wouldn't run a heli without one!) its has proven to be very good. Packs are also 35C so this shouldn't be an issue, I've only ever owned 30C packs in the past and they have never been a problem. I don't have any bogging issues and the packs are still cool to the touch after each flight. I parallel charge my packs so I may just do one to see how much mAh im actually putting back in, that should give me a good idea of the true capacity but I can't see me having a problem with them. The heli is also pretty light, RTF its 841g, so the only things I can think of is its either my motor set up is wrong or just my flying.

For those who aren't using the stock ESC what have you set your motor timing and PWM to? Mine is currently Auto timing and 12KHz PWM.

On another note, I've noticed on my heli that the tail slide ring is rotating when the tail in spinning, it should be static, the brass slider is the only thing that should rotate, not the whole assembly. The design is similar to the Goblin 500 which has a problem with the slide ring rotating and wearing out the locating pins that sit in it, giving you real slop in the tail. Although the ring is plastic on the Forza unlike the Goblins metal, i'm probably going to put a dab of epoxy on the ring so that it stops it spinning.

[URL="http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/Mattpamplin/media/tailslider_zps0e00fd53.jpg.html"][IMG]http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a508/Mattpamplin/tailslider_zps0e00fd53.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[French Paul]

I'm not educated on the vortex but can you run a governor from the version you have?
I use both hobbyking (£2.50 with a spektrum sat plug) and hobbywing (£5 with a servo plug) sensors which are both surprisingly good!
i also didn't hear any bogging but it sure was, I think that smooth sound hides any bogging , but with the sensor fitted there was a noticeable difference.
maybe worth a go instead of playing with settings on your esc?
im fairly sure timing is where you'll gain some flight time as was my case so either way should be a benefit...
as for the tail, I checked mine and the slide ring has been spinning too, though there's no wear on it yet after 6-7 hours of use.
I'll order a new slider and see if it's the same.....